From X-entertainment,"I never got into Battlestar Galactica in any of its incarnations, mostly because I don't remember ever having access to it as a kid. I was intrigued by its many aliens and robots that I'd spot in various sci-fi rags and the occasional TV Guide, but if my geek cred rode on even the most basic Battlestar quiz, I'd flunk and be shot. That said, it's pretty hard to go through life not knowing what a Cylon is, and I have no trouble appreciating the heck out of a Battlestar Galactica Cylon Bubble Machine.
The "Bubble Machine" technology was nothing new — basically, you had a tub of bubbles with a large, plastic figurine attached to the top. (A Cylon, in this case.) By flipping the figurine's head back and blowing through a hole, a mass of bubbles sprung from its exposed neck cavity. It sounds kinda macabre when I explain it like that, so it's important to remember that fun soap bubbles can ever be ghoulish.
In the ancient commercial, a couple of kids give us a demonstration. And then they give us another demonstration. And they keep repeating the demonstration, over and over again. They don't even take a breath to look at their bubbles — fools just keep blowin' away, apparently skirting the usual contest of seeing who can make the biggest bubbles in favor or the less-competed challenge of who could make the most.
One thing the ad doesn't mention is how awesome it was to turn the bubble-spewin' figurine into an everyday action figure once the soap stuff either ran out or got boring. Cylons are pretty badass looking; if I had that thing, there's no way I wouldn't have dropped the bubble bottle and made the topper part of my action figure wars."
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For the record, I've been trying to post the actual commercial via YouTube all week but YouTube has been cranky. Very cranky.
Where's the picture of young JPX playing with this?
(with and without his entire family)
Sadly I never had this, but I did have Crazy Foam, remember that stuff? It was a brilliant way to sell shaving cream to children. It would be like selling deoderant as Doctor Octopus repellent or something.
I remember Crazy Foam very well. I remember the ads on television, where a frantic announcer and some kids kept saying, "Crazy foam!"
Anyone remember the Yoo-Doo Power Bouncer?
"Pour in the powder..."
"Hold it under water..."
I"ve never heard of Yoo-Doo Power Bouncer but I'm going to look it up right now.
Are you certain that's what it's called? I can't find any information on the Yoo-Doo Power Bouncer.
That's because it's some toy from the Peanuts universe. Don't listen to Jordan, he's crazy foam.
It's hard to tell from that pic, but that bubble bottle bears the slimmest of resemblences to a Cylon.
Crazy Foam was a product that my mother never had time for. I think she bought one can once at my feverish insistance and afterwards remarked that there wasn't much foam in there. Typical parent/kid dynamic: "that product you're nuts for is a ripoff" vs. "but Mom, we had Crazy Foam!"
Octo,
Exactly! I hated it when my parents would "evaluate" what I wanted, as if I could be persuaded to accept something more sensible or useful. They didn't get it!
My grandmother, who always refers to comic books as "funny books" would always argue that they weren't worth buying because "they're just full of ads". Similarly, she was anti-James Bond movies because, "It's all sex and violence", as if that was a negative draw.
I love the double meaning of Jordan's "they didn't get it."
You guys have probably heard this story, but once I was in a toy store in Brooklyn and this very young child had picked out a small Playmobil toy and his grandmother said "is that all you want? Because if you like, you can get more." Normally I'd never engage some stranger's kid in public, but this was so the opposite of the kid vs. authority figure dynamic usually seen in toy stores that I was compelled to lean down and stage-whisper "Get more! Get more!"
I witnessed something similar the other day. I was in Target and this kid was picking out a Spider-Man figure and his father said, "You only want one?" I thought, "God, what a lucky f'ing kid!" When I was a kid I had to beg, beg, beg, beg my mother to get me ONE $2 Star Wars figure. For the longest time I only had Darth Vader. It's not fun to play with Star Wars figures when you only have 1. I wasn't one of those kids who could integrate his figres with other figures (e.g., a Star Wars figure with a Micronaught). Darth had to play alone, FOR A LONG TIME. I realized how bad I had it when I was invited to Octo's house (finally) and he had like 17,000 Star Wars figures PLUS the Millenium Falcon. jerk.
And your whole life since then has been about catching up. Aww.
I used to integrate my SW figs with the Lego spacemen, sometimes, as enemies. The great thing was you could attack the Lego bases and actually blow them all to pieces.
Star Wars figures with LEGOs? Perish the thought, for shame, for shame!
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